06.22.25

Merkley: Republicans Confirm the Use of Magic Math

Republican Leadership’s Obsession with Using “Current Policy Baseline” Will Explode the National Debt; Republicans Directed JCT to Score the Finance Title Using the Budget Gimmick

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Following direction from Senate Republicans, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) released its score on the Senate Finance Committee’s portion of the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” using “magic math” – in the form of a budget gimmick known as “current policy baseline” – to make these regressive tax giveaways to the wealthy falsely appear to add little to the national debt. U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, released the below statement calling out Republicans for doubling down on their current policy obsession.

“Republicans finally showed their hand, and its completely dishonest. ‘Current policy baseline’ is a budget gimmick that is nothing more than smoke and mirrors instead of honest accounting. This bill will add trillions upon trillions of dollars to the national debt to fund tax breaks for billionaires – while Republicans want everyone to think it adds zero,” said Ranking Member Jeff Merkley. “Republicans who claim to care about fiscal responsibility should be outraged and doing everything they can to stop it. This is the Great Betrayal of working families where families lose, and billionaires win.”

At the direction of Senate Republicans, the analysis from JCT assumes away the costs of extending 26 specified provisions of the 2017 Trump Tax Giveaway. While using this artificial baseline suggests the tax portion of the bill only adds about $441.5 billion to the debt over 10 years, the real total debt impact is closer to $4 trillion over 10 years. Congress owes it to itself and the American people to be honest about the deficit and debt the proposed legislation will create.

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